Arkitectur3 & Art

Architects are becoming increasingly interested in digital media. Digital media make extensive use of digital technologies to address questions regarding the relationship between actual and virtual environments, and actively pursue alternative forms of architectural and urban space. Media deal with electronically based methods and techniques of design and construction, thus questioning traditional formal, material, and programmatic aspects of architecture. Generally speaking, media have two aspects: virtual reality and digital fabrication. Virtual reality utilizes various animation softwares, such as Maya, softimage, 3D Studio Max/Viz, and Form Z, in order to speculate about new kinds of space. On the other hand, some of these programs can also be used to build models through laser cutters and ultimately to fabricate structures.   If you are interested in media, it is obvious that you will need to show in your portfolio evidence of interest in and understanding of,...

The Portfolio should outline some of the main movements in architectural education and design practice. Once you are familiar with these movements, try to research them in more depth look for precedents, examples, and offices that practice them. Try to understand their aesthetic, imagery, and vocabulary, because if you are planning to join them it is very important to understand how they work and communicate. Look for the types of images such offices use, types of software they prefer, ideas they are referring to, etc. The situation is very similar with graduate schools. Some of them even have concentrations or specializations that closely follow some of these movements. When you look at the prospective schools for your postgraduate education, check if they have concentrations and if they do, try to tailor your portfolio towards one of their concentrations. This will demonstrate your understanding of contemporary practices, and it will also demonstrate your desire to expan...

You will obviously need a portfolio when you are applying for teaching positions. But here you will need to show not only your own design work, but also your written work, including published essays or projects. Preparing a portfolio for getting a teaching job is a big job, as there are significant differences between expectations in different countries and at different levels of teaching. There are very specific things that a school will be looking to find in your portfolio depending on what type of position you are seeking, which will have a major impact on its organization, and on the way that you organize your CV. Teaching positions are hard to get, and therefore you will be facing stiff competition. Make sure that your portfolio reflects the requirements of the position that is advertised, but sending a portfolio to the head or director of the school can sometimes help you obtain a part-time or adjacent teaching position without a position being advertised. If you hav...

An architectural education prepares you for professional life not only in architecture; it can also help you enter related fields such as graphic design, advertising, film, construction, real estate, and so on. If you are thinking of making such a change, your portfolio will need to show some evidence of skills and ideas related to your chosen field. If you are trying to get a position in a related discipline like graphic design, your portfolio may include, beside architectural projects, graphic compositions, and experiments with book formats and layouts, and even different portfolio types. Whichever area you choose to enter, it helps to show that you have studied it, or have some experience of working in it, demonstrated through the work shown in your portfolio.

Competition for teaching fellowships is tougher. Winning means that you have successfully competed with many other outstanding students of your generation. It can open doors to great jobs in practice and the academy. You need to remember that different fellowships have different portfolio requirements but are usually very specific about quantity and format of the work, so in general do not try to bend the rules. Instead, your editing and your message have to be carefully thought through so that the attention of your audience (the jury) is captured immediately. Once you have made it through the first round (where work is usually eliminated fairly quickly) your projects will need to stand closer scrutiny. The project pages will need to be well-composed, the project will need to be well-described and the design will need to be consistently outstanding.

Competition for scholarships and assistant ships is even more intense. These are more frequently available at graduate level, but generally rare. Whatever the case, your portfolio will have to be outstanding to get you into the pool for such funding. There will need to be a close fit between your work and the school, and your work will need to be of a very high standard indeed. Each page will need to capture attention immediately, highlight your ideas, and show their originality and relevance to the agenda of the school. For example, a strong undergraduate digital portfolio will help you to get graduate support.

Probably the most important time you will prepare a portfolio as a student will be when you will try to change schools. Most graduate programmes or diploma courses have more applicants than places, and in the best schools the competition is intense. Here your work will need to have something in common with the strengths of the school, and it will also need to stand out from the crowd. Make Your Major Interests Clear Make sure your major interests are clearly represented, and if you think you are short on work that shows what you can do, do additional work for the portfolio. Emphasizes strong computer graphic skills while demonstrating a variety of representational media; drawings, models, text, etc. It enables you to get a scholarship to attend a graduate programme with an outstanding tradition.

If you are an undergraduate student, the next kind of portfolio you will need to prepare will be the one that presents your work to potential employers. Here, your audience will be looking for your capacity to be useful in their architectural office so your message needs to emphasize your competence and compatibility with their work. Construction Experience If you have any kind of construction experience, such as helping your family build a house extension, or have worked for architects or contractors while at school, it is essential that you include copies of drawings or models or building elements that you made. For example , once you have had some office experience, you may wish to include a selection, or even a full set, of construction drawings. Interest Of Offices Offices are also interested in your design work at school, particularly if you have done design or other work in areas which the office has as a specialization. For example, if you have done housing design ...

Although some schools of architecture require portfolios for admission into a degree course, or the undergraduate programme, it is more likely that preparing for a portfolio review will probably be the first time you will need to make a portfolio. Applying For  Undergraduate Programme O r Degree Course If you are applying to an undergraduate programme or degree course that requires a portfolio. The main difference will be that your portfolio will most likely have work from your art or drafting class, or visual and constructed work you have made in your free time. Schools That Ask For Portfolio Schools that ask for a portfolio for admission to the first or freshman year are usually pretty clear about the format, so make sure you ask exactly what they are looking for. The rules for passing the academic year vary from school to school and can appear more, or less, mysterious depending on the school. In Most Schools Of Architecture  In most schools of architecture, ...

Audience as you can see, the message of your portfolio will change depending on the next intended phase of your career. The most important thing to remember is that your message, may remain the same during a particular phase of your career, the audience for your work may change dramatically. In many cases you yourself may want to use the portfolio to change your environment sometimes dramatically if you are thinking of changing countries or continents to get into graduate school, a postgraduate programme or an architectural office. Your portfolio will need to show not only the message what you already do well but how what you do well might fit into the world of the people who will be looking at your work. You need to understand your audience and its conventions before you prepare the portfolio. If you do that you will have the best chance possible to communicate appropriately. As the audiences for your portfolio will definitely have a significant impact on the format and con...

For making a portfolio one must know exactly what you want to show and why. As an architectural student you will need a portfolio for different occasions. What you decide to edit out and what you decide to keep in the portfolio will depend on how you want to be seen and what the portfolio is for. What kind of a message are you trying to get across? By this we do not mean a verbal message, although you will almost certainly want to use words to emphasize your focus in your work. A portfolio message should clearly communicate what kind of architectural interests and skills you have. For example, the portfolio you will use to apply to graduate school may emphasize your creativity and ability to work through challenging ideas and unusual forms, whereas a portfolio you use to apply for a professional job in an office may need to include construction drawings, site photographs and schedules to emphasize your technical competence. Even more specifically, if you are applying to ...

The portfolio is definitely not an archive of every piece of work that you have ever done. At a basic practical level you will not have the time and money to reproduce all that work, you will not want to pay vast amounts of money to mail it, and certainly the people who will be looking at your portfolio will not have time to look at everything you have done. In a professional situation, especially if there is an economic recession and greater competition for work, very often if you do not capture in the first few pages of your portfolio the imaginations of the people who are looking at it, they may not even get all the way through your portfolio. That means you will need to edit the portfolio itself to include only the best, the most engaging and sometimes the most provocative, work. In addition, you will need to remember that there are also differences between portfolio expectations in different countries. In the USA the portfolio you will most likely use to apply for entry...

Documentation is needed to keep your every piece of work you produce in the studio, in the office and in related visual, technical, or practical areas. Taking care of your work is the most important professional activity you will ever do. Although you may not see the connection now, later on you may need to show some of your exploratory sketches for a design project because a particular Diploma Course or graduate programme may want to see how you think through drawing. Or you may need construction photographs because a particular office may want to see that you already have some site experience, and that you know how to recognize good from bad construction. So, get into the habit of scanning or photographing hand-drawn work or models at regular points during the project.   A good time to do this is immediately after a review or jury it gives you time to reflect on the totality of the work, and if you do it well, it will make you proud of what you have done. Make sure yo...

Your portfolio is your passport and your visiting card, through which you introduce yourself to the new worlds you wish to enter and by which your value is established and compared to others. Very importantly, it is also a document through which you make a contribution to how we understand architecture; it is your chance to clarify and share what you believe and aspire to, and to present new ideas, techniques, observations and experiences, mainly to others but sometimes just to yourself. A carefully wrought portfolio of work will be the single most important record and outcome of your architectural education. The major part of your education is always going to be the design of buildings as executed through drawings, models and other kinds of visual representation, and your portfolio records the ideas, the processes and the result of your work as a designer in the architecture studio as well as in other visually oriented classes. It can also contain other kinds of info...

A portfolio of work is defined in different ways depending on the situation. There are different portfolios for different occasions. Obviously you will have one kind of portfolio at the end of your second year as an undergraduate student and another kind when you have finished post-professional studies. More importantly, when you come to make your portfolio at the moments in your life when you want your academic or professional career to develop or change, you will most probably make a different portfolio to suit where you would like to be heading. However, all these different kinds of portfolios will have one thing in common. They will contain your work in a format that will make it easy for the portfolio to be transported physically and digitally to many different situations. The most normal format for a portfolio most closely resembles a book. It can be a small book which is easy to mail, or it can be a large book, almost like a collection of paintings which you take with...